Knicks roster passes championship eye test, but there’s a catch

NEW YORK — That championship window? It’s been pried wide open.

The New York Knicks have taken their rightful seat at the table, improving a roster that ran out of both gas and able bodies in the second round of the playoffs by agreeing in principle to send Bojan Bogdanovic and five first-round picks to the Brooklyn Nets for a bona fide third offensive option in Mikal Bridges.

It’s a trade that signals the Knicks pushing their chips to the center of the table in pursuit of the franchise’s first NBA title in 50 years.

Provided the Knicks can re-sign OG Anunoby as an unrestricted free agent this summer, the Knicks now have a loaded starting five projecting on par with the best five-man units around the league.

The Knicks roster passes the championship eye test, but there’s a catch.

Bridges joins the core Knicks group of Jalen Brunson, Julius Randle, Donte DiVincenzo, Josh Hart, and Mitchell Robinson.

Brunson, DiVincenzo, Hart, and Bridges won the 2016 NCAA title at Villanova as teammates, then won another one in 2018 after Hart left for the NBA Draft.

As it stands, Miles McBride is also coming off the bench for the Knicks, as is fourth-year big man Jericho Sims rounding what projects as an eight-to-nine-man rotation (including Anunoby) with the roster as currently constructed.

Stacked against previous NBA champions, the Knicks’ roster in progress holds strong.

• The reigning champion Boston Celtics, for example, had a rotation stretching eight players deep. Boston boasts a stacked starting five of Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Kristaps Porzingis, Jrue Holiday, and Derrick White with Al Horford, Payton Pritchard, and Sam Hauser off the bench. They are the gold standard.
• The previous year’s NBA champion Denver Nuggets featured a back-to-back MVP winner in Nikola Jokic, plus a loaded supporting cast of Jamal Murray, Michael Porter Jr., Aaron Gordon, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope with Bruce Brown, Reggie Jackson, Jeff Green, and Christian Braun off the bench.
• The 2022 NBA champion Golden State Warriors were equally as deep: Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green headlined the roster, but Jordan Poole and Andrew Wiggins provided quality firepower as third and fourth offensive options. Golden State rounded its rotation with Kevon Looney, Andre Iguodala, Otto Porter Jr., and a promising young talent in Jonathan Kuminga.
• The championship Milwaukee Bucks also had a rotation featuring seven starting-caliber players, led by an MVP in Giannis Antetokounmpo plus Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday but supported by Bobby Portis, Brook Lopez, PJ Tucker, and Pat Connaughton.
• And LeBron James and Anthony Davis took Alex Caruso, Kyle Kuzma, Rajon Rondo, Markieff Morris, Dwight Howard, Danny Green, Markieff Morris, and Caldwell-Pope to a Los Angeles Lakers title in the 2020 Orlando Bubble.

Quality depth is the name of the game.

It’s the common denominator between each of the past five NBA champions. Each had at least one All-Star starting-caliber player, but they also had players coming off the bench who could easily start elsewhere.

The Knicks check both boxes.

They now project to start Bridges and Anunoby on the wing, plus a pair of All-Stars in Brunson and Randle at the one and four.

This means they will bring both DiVincenzo and Hart off the bench, two players who started the second half of the season and helped the Knicks — without Randle (dislocated right shoulder) — to the Eastern Conference’s No. 2 seed and a second-round playoff appearance despite a barrage of injuries to the playoff roster.

CENTER STILL A CONCERN

The Knicks are unlikely to retain Isaiah Hartenstein, who is expected to command a salary exceeding the four-year, $72.5 million deal New York can offer in free agency. In fact, due to salary cap constraints, the Knicks will be unable to sign Anunoby to a significant contract while still retaining enough room under the first apron to offer Hartenstein a deal beginning upwards of $16 million in year one.

Barring a second significant trade, the Knicks will start Robinson at the five.

Robinson is a dominant rebounder, rim-protector, and finisher who underwent a pair of surgeries on a left ankle sustaining two stress injuries last season alone.

Injuries have been an unfortunate but significant portion of the starting Knicks center’s career. He appeared in 31 games last season, 51 games the season prior, 72 games in 2022, then another 31 games in 2021.

If Robinson were to sustain another injury, the Knicks would be left with only Sims, who only saw playoff minutes in garbage time in Round 2 against the Pacers.

If they can shore this position in the draft, through free agency, or via trade, the Knicks will be one step closer to their best shot at winning a title since they made it to the NBA Finals in 1999.